RUDIMENTS, pt. 96
Making Cars
I cannot remember the night I
got picked up and left the seminary -
I know it was dark out, and cold.
My father arrived, it seemed, about
7, near the doorway, along the side
of the dorm-building I was in. New
incoming kids, 'freshman' as they
were called, (a tad pretentiously.
This wasn't college really), were
placed in the crummiest building -
an older, low, ramshackle structure.
It took a few years to get to this
nicer building, and I'd finally made
it, but was exiting. Mixed feelings,
though not too mixed. He pulled up
in some station wagon, ('60 Chevy),
and really not much was said. I
don't remember having packed or
gathered my stuff, even things like
sheets and towels, so I don't know
what I took away. No idea. We
loaded the car with whatever it was,
and drove off - I never even had to
sign-out or anything. It's all just a
blank now, anyway. My father never
liked me being there as it was, so to him
to be able to drag me out was a good
deal. There was no 'I told you so,' stuff,
but there might as well have been. My
father's idea of any of this church stuff
hinged on a lack of 'masculinity.' I kind
of understood what he meant, but we
were not on the same page at all - nor
about anything else. Had I a crystal ball
at that point, by which to have seen the
future with him, I probably would have
jumped out of the car into the Turnpike
traffic right then and there. Now, let me
interject this v-e-r-y bizarre, private, and
personal, coincidence. My parents are both
dead now, long time, and my siblings are
still around, but there's no threat now and
I doubt they'll read this here anyhow. But.
-
This entire scenario, almost image for
image, was to be repeated, in reverse,
some 30 years later. I'll get to that in
a moment. The best thing about this
leaving from the seminary under cover
of the night's darkness and the cold,
Wintry feel was exactly that - the
darkness. It acted as a cover for all
of this. I needed to do nothing in
daylight, it was all thus stealthy and
secretive. Like a plot, like a sneakful,
programmed counter-attack. The way
a ghost or a criminal would do it. It
made me feel, (biblical reference here)
in a way like Barabbas, when the crowd
starts yelling, to Pilate, about keeping
Jesus for death and giving them Barabbas,
the released criminal, instead. 'We want
Barabbas!!', the gospels have it. I felt like
Barabbas, being released and bundled
out of jail under cover of night so as to
begin the implementing of another dark
plight for someone else but not for me.
Well, I guess you had to be there.
-
There's something called 'zero sum'
accounting, which I never understood,
but it has to do with a deal or an outcome
in which both sides come out equal, no
one losing anything. In most cases, I think,
it goes that, say, if you win, I lose. Which
is the opposite, because someone gets hurt.
Zero-sum deals somehow are meant to do
away with that. It's pretty arcane and I
never understood it anyway, nor was I
much interested. People who think like
that bore me. First off, I am immediately
suspicious of the kind of crap that wants
to be 'nice' to everyone. Hey, someone's
always losing, as I see it, and if it's not
you then it's me. Not cool. Leaving like
that, in darkness, was pretty great and
memorable. Neither time nor need for
goodbyes existed. It was over. Thirty
years later, towards the end of his life,
my father had sort of lost it, in the head,
and had begun doing some bizarre and
crazy things. This time he was in jail, in
Toms River, NJ. The call came through
and, as the oldest kid, I peddled up -
stretching some credit so as to get the
bundle of money needed to bail him
out, etc. I wrote it against my house,
and it eventually all did get paid. I, in
the exact same fashion - full moon
night, darkness, Parkway instead of
Turnpike, but same deal - drove down
to get him from jail. It was bizarre;
a complete reverse of that night at
the seminary. And nothing again made
any sense, but this time it was me in
the driver's seat. He was talking on:
outraged over what he'd seen in the
jail, some hungry guy getting beat
around, he said, for asking for more
food; and then his description of the
poor food served, as if any of that was
a concern or a condition. Then, he went
to the full moon that was shining on us
along the Parkway - how 'we'd' given
it up, after attaining it, just left it to the
Russians, who were already there (I'd
guessed he meant Communists) looking
down on us and watching, readying the
takeover.' Oh, boy, I thought to myself,
this is really it.
-
Now there are a couple of things here
relatable to all of this as illness. First,
this total Barabbas funk - it was nothing
but an evil leftover of the sort of Catholic
thinking that was still burning my brain
that night I left - even to think like that
was insane. What poor, miserable creature
would have had those walls and doorways
erected in his mind like that. The entire
Barabbas thing was a bad theatric, a scene
made up and implemented by Gospel
writers to advance their story-line so as
to show people in mad, frenzied groups
selecting black over white, absolutes
forever, throwing themselves to the
wolves, thereby, but never realizing, as
well, by the story-line, that they were
in turn 'saving' both themselves and
ALL Mankind by setting in motion
the very theatrical drama this 'church'
simulacrum needed to advance their
cause and enslave their people. Boy,
was I glad to be out of there.
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